Thursday, 6 November 2014

Warframe: Archwing

"Ninjas in space" took it to another level with the release of the Archwing patch a couple of weeks back. Players are now able to take their Warframes into full space combat on select missions. To give you a better taste of it, watch this trailer.

Giant swords are more effective in space!

Yes, the Archwing is very cool - but how does it actually play? The short answer is like a space simulator. A very challenging and/or non-rewarding space simulator. In space, your warframe has none of its normal abilities. It is all dependent on the archwing type you have, and these (unlike other equipment in game) are currently unmodifiable as far as I know. The only two choices so far are the general type Odonata and the more bomber-class Elytron.

In my experience it's been a curb stomp one way or another, ranging from press "E" to win (melee is surprisingly effective) to you being alive for a mere few seconds if a swarm of enemies gets to you. That said I'm not a very good pilot, and as usual having team mates / wing men makes things a fair bit easier. One thing I'd definitely like to add is a "lock-on" alarm and missile radar to better know when to use those flares/chaff. Currently you need to eyeball that and use best guess and that's pretty tough to do when you have bogies in all directions.

All up the Archwing stuff is pretty cool, but still has a lot of room for improvement. The Archwing update also included a new type of warframe and have also put in six syndicate factions players can support / piss off. If there's anything Digital Extremes (the producers of the game) have proven, its that they LOVE updating and improving their game, and one of the main reasons I think Warframe is pretty successful. Definitely worth a try, though maybe wait a bit for the Archwing segment to improve. I have no doubt it will. ;P